1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a method and system for verifying migration of data. More specifically, as files are migrated to a different storage system metadata associated with the transferred file is verified.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a multiprocessing computer system, a storage area network (“SAN”) is an increasingly popular storage technology. The SAN allows multiple computers to access a set of storage devices, also known as storage media. Often data may be migrated between filesystems hosted on different storage media through a computer network. The computer network may be a local area network, a wide area network, a telecommunication network, a computer component network, a message based network, or other functionally equivalent data transfer network system. Migration of data is common during a backup or restore operation. A source filesystem is the original filesystem storing the associated data, and a destination filesystem is the filesystem storing the transferred data. Each file and folder in the source filesystem is comprised of data and metadata. The data includes numerical or other information represented in a form suitable for processing. The metadata includes information pertaining to the size, creation time, last modification time, and security attributes of the file and/or folder. When a file and/or folder is transferred from the source filesystem to the destination filesystem, both the data and metadata are required to accompany the transfer.
At such time as a transfer of a file and/or folder between filesystems, an operator may specify that all or a portion of the associated metadata accompany the transferred file. If the source and destination filesystems are different, there is an increased likelihood that there may have been an incomplete transfer of the associated metadata. Although there are tools that synchronize two file sets, the prior art does not provide a tool that detects differences in metadata of the two file sets to verify that the metadata was correctly preserved during the transfer from the source filesystem to the destination filesystem. In addition, current data transfer tools do not ensure preservation of transferred metadata of the creation time and last modification time, nor do they allow the user to verify correct preservation of the metadata during the data transfer. Prior art solutions for checking preservation of transferred metadata require a manual check of corresponding files and folders in both the source and destination filesystems. However, the prior art does not provide a tool that supports an automated verification of metadata of all files and folders at both the source and destination filesystem locations.
Accordingly, there is a need for an automated tool that validates the integrity of metadata at both the source and destination filesystem locations of all transferred files and folders.